My attempts at commenting on her post were unsuccessful, but I would note that Kanazawa is neat and its history is really interesting. There is an awful l lot of "What If" potential there. Additionally, I gather that Lady Eboshi's outpost from Mononoke no Hime is based in part on this town.

The area still has a reputation of having a bit of an independent streak.

One thing that probably helped them initially (and most likely moved them up on the 'conquest priority list') was the fact that the area has one of Japan's few natural resources. Specifically, the river there is fairly rich in gold. ( Panning is NOT allowed today...the gold in the river is the property of some mining company which has a filtration plant....and any gold flakes that make it past are still company property...and can just go out to sea)

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I'm glad you said something. The spam filter got your comment attempts, but I put one back. I will mark "not spam" on all the others to train the filter, but just trash them.

I think what happened is that it was trying to catch a crop of spammers that have reasonable-sounding comments but then link to some Polish cheap car insurance or whatever. The link inside the comment may have tripped something, too.